Marketing Speak for the Uninitiated
We try to avoid jargon when we talk with clients, but sometimes it can slip through so we thought you might like a guide to what we’re talking about.
Above the Fold – the content you can see on a web page before you have to scroll down. The phrase, bizarrely perhaps, was born from turning over a folded newspaper to read the lower part of the page.
Above the Line – advertising material that is displayed at the very top of a web page, quite often a paid-for banner ad.
A/B Split – publishing two visually different versions of the same information to identify which gains the most attention. Also linked to ‘Split Testing’.
Acquisition Cost – the amount of spend for each new customer or enquiry, as determined by the amount you spend divided by the number of approaches you record.
Ad Awareness – whether people remember an advert and, more importantly, whether they remember what was being promoted.
Ambient – unconventional approaches to advertising.
Brand Essence – a brand’s central values. Brand essence should guide and inform the brand’s marketing so that the message is sufficiently consistent to reinforce the brand.
Call to Action – anything designed to encourage a viewer to respond.
Click-Through Rate – the percentage of ad viewers who click to visit your website.
Cluster – a group of people who can be grouped together because of a common behavioural trait or affinity for a particular activity on a certain day or at a certain time of day.
Direct Response – media published with the intention of inviting immediate interaction, such as a click-through (see Call to Action).
Engagement – as you begin to publish quality material that’s relevant to your audience there will be more approval clicks in terms of ‘likes’, ‘shares’, ‘pins’ or ‘+1s’, depending on which platform you promote through.
Frequency – the number of times a potential customer has the opportunity to see your message.
IP Block – it’s impossible to calculate fresh visits to your website if you’re frequently working on it and checking how content looks unless your IP (your Internet Protocol address) is blocked from being included in the statistics.
Lead Generation – marketing activity that is intended to increase enquiries.
Long Tail – usually relates to the buying cycle for something that is a considered purchase.
Marketing Mix – combination of elements that comprise a marketing campaign.
Pay-per-Click (PPC) – advertising on a platform that is paid for each time a viewer follows the link to your website. Some platforms reward high-performing ads by reducing the PPC price as encouragement to continue running the ad.
Reach – quite simply, how many people are seeing what you publish on social media and how many visitors you have to your website.
Split Testing – changing a single element of an advert to measure differences in response rates. If the baseline design has six elements this enables seven different split tests (test 0 being the original baseline design).
Target Audience – while many people know what this means there are some who still believe that they can sell to everyone. The target audience is the group of people you most want to communicate with because they are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
Timeline – the schedule of activity for a campaign over a predetermined period of time.
Traction – like a car on ice, until you find some grip the wheels might be going round but there’s no measurable movement. Traction occurs when you can actually measure the movement that comes from marketing. It may not immediately manifest as more sales, but more visits to your website and a longer visit time, more ‘likes’ on Facebook, more people connecting with you on LinkedIn and, ultimately, more enquiries.
Usability – how a website rates in terms of ease of penetrability for visitors. A site that presents complex navigation will be quickly dismissed by a visitor.